


Pretty Little Bird

by pragma (CarlileLovesAnime)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Airships, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, F/F, Gen, M/M, Pirates, steampunk airship pirates ye
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-06 03:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarlileLovesAnime/pseuds/pragma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The moment Christa lays eyes on Captain Ymir, every last doubt leaves her mind: this is definitely no ordinary airship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Maria

**Author's Note:**

  * For [byakuzee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/byakuzee/gifts).



> MERRY CHRISTMAS ZEE! /throws red and green confetti everywhere/ ilu and i hope you like this humble 11k-word present 
> 
> as much as i would like to continue this fic straight away (actual plans for the plot are just starting to take shape hoho it's exciting), i am going to take a break to focus on my fic for springles week (january 12-18) first. if i don't get around to this in the next month or two please come verbally slap me. 
> 
> this fic (or at least this chapter) was beta'd by lore (tumblr user ascensionablaze) and stephany (tumblr user garrianvakarian). both of them are amazing and i couldn't have done this without them. thank y'all for letting me bother you during your winter break!

“Please,” she begs, “Just give me a chance.”

The man, tall with slicked-back black hair, swings a burlap bag on top of a crate, where another man waits to lift it onto the deck. “Forget it, birdy.”

“I know I can be of use.” He crosses the dock for the next piece of cargo. She half-leaps to keep in stride with him.

“I can think of a million reasons you wouldn’t be,” he says, shaking his head. They reach the piles of boxes and bags to be loaded, and stop. “You’re scrawny, you’re probably slow, and you’re clearly new,” – she glances in some kind of offense down at her clothes, as if trying to determine just what makes her seem that way – “so _stop_ _asking_.” He picks up a wooden box, turns and marches away.

She watches him head for the airship. A frown crosses her face. She looks over the boxes, and then puffs out her chest, rolls up the long sleeves of her coat, wraps her arms around a crate, and heaves it onto her hip. She starts toward the ship, grinding her teeth.

“What are you doing?” He rushes at her when he sees what she’s carrying.

“Helping you load,” she replies.

He smacks the crate out of her hands – it crashes to the dock and splits open, and yellow spice spills over the broken pieces of wood from the inside. She gasps, and he slaps a hand onto her shoulder. He brings his face close to hers, narrows his eyes and growls, “I told you to stop, haybag.”

“Hey!” The man turns on his heels and throws his attention at another man, one with an eyepatch, who watches them from the deck of the airship. “You can tell her to go away, but don’t manhandle her – that’s uncalled for,” he says.

The man with slicked-back hair shoots a final glare at her, bares his teeth, and releases her with a small shove. He makes a grunting sound, deliberately hitting her shoulder as he stalks past her toward the unloaded cargo.

She looks at the eyepatch man for a second. “I’m sorry about him,” he says with half a shrug. “We’re just in a hurry.”

“I – granny it.” _That’s a term these people use for “understand”, right?_ She coughs once to clear her throat, glances down at the smashed crate and shuffles onto her toes. “Is there any way I could help?”

He shakes his head. “We’re fine, thank you. We don’t really have the room or the time.”

She drops to her heels, and her muscles slacken with disappointment. He apologizes again.

“Good luck finding a crew, though, ma’am,” he calls, and he does something like a salute. She feigns a smile at him.

The man with slicked-back hair comes toward the airship from behind her, walking with bowed legs to balance the weight of the box in his arms. “Oi, Marco, if we’re in such a goddamn hurry then why’m I the only person out here loading?”

Marco purses his lips. “Millius said he’d be right back,” he says. He strains to lift the heavy box onto the deck.

The young woman, her chest feeling heavy, grits her teeth and starts to turn back. She looks down at the spray of spice on the metal grate of the dock, watching the particles sift through the holes to the ground far below. For a moment she debates on whether to salvage it, but figures she would just be yelled at again. She heaves a sigh and makes her way off the dock.

This is the third failed attempt. She’s starting to think this isn’t a good idea, hinging the entire plan on the assumption that she’d be accepted. The sun will rise soon: she can see the blue in the sky lightening, and even a pale orange between the lower cirrus clouds.

She wanders the pier and finds another airship a few docks down – a private, newer one, with parts that actually match, unlike the last. She casts looks in different directions. Nobody else seems to be near this one. She swallows hard, her heart rate quickening, clunks up the stairs and holds the hem of her sleeve in her fist while she raps against the hatch. She stands in front of the door through some clatters and bangs.

A man pulls the door partway open and peeks at her through the crack. “What?” he gripes. He’s old and looks disheveled.

She opens her mouth and inhales but cannot get the words out, taking half a step back and lifting her hand on instinct.

“I don’t need some dollymop adding weight to my ship,” he says flatly.

She furrows her eyebrows. “‘Dollymop’?” she repeats under her breath.

“Go away.” He snorts on some phlegm and starts to swing the hatch shut.

She kicks her foot between the door and its frame. “Please, sir. I am not looking for dirty work.”

“Whaddya want, then?” he huffs. He opens the door an inch or so more. “God, so pushy.”

“All I need is a mode of transport,” she explains.

He cocks an eyebrow. “Wha?”

“I am willing to pull whatever weight I must,” she says, bowing her head. “But, please. I need a ship to take me away.” Airships are the fastest way to travel, these days. The trains are too crowded, automobiles too limited.

He hesitates a moment, chewing the dry skin on his bottom lip and reading the crooked part of her blond hair. He shuffles in place and glances out at the empty dock closest to his.

“No.” Then his mouth snaps shut, and he deliberates. “Where do you need to go?” he asks, his voice lower.

She gasps. Her head lifts. She has to think a moment, calling the image of a map to her mind.

“Shiganshina, if you can,” she answers. Her voice is high with hope. “I need to get at least as far as Hermiha.”

He shakes his head. “My license is domestic only.”

Her chest sinks and shoulders drop.

“Shiganshina’s an awfully long way to go,” he says.

She moves her jaw back and forth a bit, and draws her jacket closed. “I have important business there.”

“Tough. I’m too old to go to jail.” He scoffs and waves a hand in her direction. “Now, fly off, birdy. Shoo, shoo.”

The hatch door closes before she can get in another word. She sighs, descends the stairs, and slinks up the dock to the pier. The sky is brightening now, readying itself for the upcoming sun. A shy breeze attempts to rustle her clothes.

She takes a look back at the other airship. Millius (she assumes it’s him, a new man she doesn’t recognize with a thick build and pale skin) and the man with slicked-back hair carry the last of the cargo to the deck. She watches them from where she stands.

Just when the very top of the sun crests over the horizon, she starts toward that ship again, using shadows for cover.

“That’s the last of it,” the slicked man declares. He plants one foot on the deck.

Millius points down at the spilled spice. “But, Nac, what about this crate?”

“It’s useless now.” Nac brings his other foot onto the deck. “Come on. We have to go before it’s too bright outside.” Millius, still fretful, grabs the railing and hoists himself onto the deck behind his fellow crewmember, and the two of them disappear.

She exhales slowly through the nose, scurries onto the dock, drops to her knees in front of the smashed crate and scoops as many handfuls of spice as she can into the small bag she’s kept hidden under her jacket. It has a soft, powdery texture and a mustardy scent – turmeric, she determines when she touches the end of her tongue to the residue on her fingertip. There is not much more of it she can save. She sucks the corners of her lips into her mouth, stuffs the bag under her jacket, glances about and stands.

For some reason, this airship doesn’t seem to have its name printed anywhere on the outer body. She does not consider herself an airship expert by any means, of course. This ship is odd – endearing, though not overly conspicuous. A mix of brass and steel parts, a humble size. It has both balloons and propellers, which is not normal for a ship of its type. She sneaks toward the opening in the railing, and peeks just far enough onto the deck to remain unnoticed.

She can see a few people rushing about, retreating to the cockpit or below deck. Millius and Nac descend a set of stairs she cannot see. Most of the crates and bags that were once piled on the dock are now out of sight, the rest secured to the ground of the deck.

A woman in red emerges from the cockpit. “Do we have enough fuel?” she calls to some unknown party, and leaves down the stairs.

Unless this one is much older than it appears, she figures the airship must run on steam power like the majority of other airships – taking in condensation from clouds to conserve water weight, and using some clean heat source to convert the water to steam. Powers the engines and lightens the air in the balloons all at once. She read this in a book somewhere. A couple different books.

Suddenly the engine down below roars awake, startling her. The propellers’ blades begin to whoosh. The deck vibrates. One short stream of vapor hisses from a pipe sticking out the side. The ship inches forward, and she jumps back and stiffens.

Someone slams the door on their way out of the cockpit. “What in the blazes?” They jog a little ways toward the opening in the railing. The sound of the engine quiets and the propellers slow. The girl sucks in a breath and holds it. “Why ain’t we moving?”

The girl throws around a few looks and finds that the bow of the ship is still tethered to the deck. She puffs out her cheeks a bit.

“Christ.” The mystery-crewperson seems to notice this as well, and makes their way to the front of the ship to untie it.

She peeks around the railing again to ensure the coast is clear and, while the only other person’s back is turned, heaves her small body onto the deck and scurries to the closest set of secured crates. Her feet make no sound over the metallic hum of the engine.

She cannot see, ducked between two of the larger crates, but can still sense the person finish untying, start toward the cockpit, and stop. “Consarnit, the gate was left wide open too,” the person groans, stomps to the opening in the railing, slams it closed, locks it, and bolts into the cockpit. The engine thunders back to full power.

The deck shakes so violently that she can hardly breathe, sweating in the at once blistering heat and chilling cold. She presses her palms against the crates around her to brace herself. The ship hovers inches off its platform and eases forward. Steam pours out of the pipe.

With the rattling of the crates, the howling wind and the pervasive hum of the engine, she can almost feel the weight of sound ripping through her skull. She pokes her head out of her hiding place to see the infant sun in the majestic yellow-blue sky. Feel the wind fan her hair. Smell the dew on the steel plating. She takes a deep breath and lifts both her arms above her head, sways her fingers against the pressure of the gale, and grins. She turns to watch the way the docking tower shrinks into the landscape with every other building around it. The deafening noise is cleansing, in a way. She curls her fingers around the top edges of the boxes.

She tries to anchor her feet on the shaky ground, but her legs wobbly too much. The ship takes a shallow turn, knocking one of the crates against her left side. She squeaks in exclamation. No way that won’t leave a hefty bruise over the bottom of her ribcage. It hurts – it’s sore for a long time afterward.

She takes in a breath and holds it – she can already feel the air thinning, even though the ship just barely left port. Her foot slides uncontrollably forward with the vibrations. She grits her teeth, takes a final look at the unobstructed sky in front of her, and drops to her knees to huddle between the boxes for a while longer.

Once the airship reaches a steady altitude, the engine settles, with a large blast of steam through the outer pipes. The ground still shakes, but significantly less. She sets her hands on the tops of the boxes and attempts to stand.

She gulps back the small, foul-tasting lump at the base of her throat. Now the sky is pure blue, and almost cloudless. The white sun climbs higher by the minute. She throws a glance sternward.

The city of Stohess is so small now. It reminds her of the little brass circuit board inside her grandmother’s scribe automaton, glittering in some parts and stained with ink in others, novel and worn, moving and immobile. She thinks of the people there, where she must be relative to them. Whether they think of her.

She chances a few steps on unstable legs, and in the end resorts to crawling, toward the open vent shaft near the bow. She hopes it’s safe – she hasn’t seen any steam come out of it. She feels dizzy.

All the sudden the hatch over the stairs to the cabins flies open with a terrible crashing sound. She scrambles to hide behind the wall of the cockpit. She is like a roach in a kitchen, the kind of pest her grandfather goes out of his way to throw his shoes at whenever he spots them. She cannot see anybody, but she can hear at least four pairs of feet clunking on the deck.

“Think she’s gonna hold up?” an unknown masculine voice asks. “We didn’t even do the maintenance you said—”

“It’s fine, I’m sure, as long as we make a stop in the next week or two,” a feminine voice answers.

Footsteps approach the pile of cargo where the girl hid. “Ah, it came a little loose.” It sounds like Marco, the crewman with the eyepatch. He pushes some of the crates back into their places.

The blond girl holds her breath – as if she’s ducking into a gas chamber – and tenses her muscles against the heated friction of her heartbeat. She scuttles unnoticed to the vent.

She sticks her arms inside the metal shaft to help herself stand and looks into the wide black mouth of it, and pauses a moment, the wind flying through her hair and whistling down the tunnel.

_“What a nice morning. So mild and comfortable.” “It’s too dry – not good.” “We’ll be fine. We’re heading south. It should get cloudier the further we go.”_

She wonders what she’s even thinking, sneaking onto an airship without permission like this. Something about this ship is off. If she slips up and is found, the crew could kill her.

But now, she supposes, this is her only option. Her last resort. As apprehensive as she should feel, she is not allowed to care anymore. She struggles up into the vent, gnashing her teeth at the effort, and slides her body down the shaft with ease.

***

The moment the kitchen is deserted she escapes via vent, dumps all the turmeric from her bag into a container, and slinks back to her hiding place. She sits in a bend in the ventilation tunnel, breathes in the damp dust around her, presses the back of her head to the metal wall and doubts for the hundredth time what she is doing. Her heart is heavy and hot with guilt, with fear.

She’s not too sure how much time passes, after that, exploring when the crew is quiet, sleeping when it is not, subsisting on what scraps she can rummage. She thinks it must be a couple days, at least, before she finds herself unable to hold in a sneeze at the worst possible time.

The conversation in the room screeches to a halt. “Did you hear that?” says one of the two voices, the one she doesn’t recognize. “It sounded like a cough or a sneeze or something.”

“I think I did…” She’s sure the other person is Marco.  

Her heart paralyzes in the center of her chest. She has had a few close calls with being discovered, but until now hasn’t screwed up as royally as she did just now. Panicking, she holds her breath in puffed-out cheeks and tries to decide how quickly to move or if she even should at all.

“Maybe we have a rat problem,” the unknown man snarls. She hears a smallsword unsheathing, and it makes her cringe.

She curls herself into a tiny ball, muffling her mouth with her palms. She cannot stop trembling. Shadow overtakes the stripes of faint light that come through the grate, and a chill crashes over her.

“Sounded to me like it came from the vent,” Marco says. He pulls out the grated cover, sets it on the floor soundlessly – oh God, she’s going to die, a sharp breath shoots through her, _she’s going to die she’s going to die_ – and leans back and ducks to peek inside.

“Oh, Jean!” Marco calls, “You were right. We have a stowaway.”

He stands and she hears a pair of footsteps trot toward the opening to stand beside him. Tears begin to boil out of her eyes. She clenches her abdominal muscles at the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Jean leans down to stick his head into the vent. “Ha!” He bares his teeth in a nasty kind of smile and holds his sword right outside the opening, at just the right angle to catch the light.

“Why don’t you crawl out of your hidey-hole, you rat?” he threatens.

Marco’s voice is much gentler. “Hold on, Jean.” Jean frowns and lowers his sword. “Let me talk to them.”

Jean grunts once in hesitation, and at length draws his head out of the vent. He stands aside to let Marco have a look.

“Hi,” Marco starts. She does not move. She realizes now that almost the entire right half of his face, around the eyepatch, is badly burned. He adopts a small, conscious smile and tries again. “Why are you in our ventilation system?” he asks.

She stares at him in wide-eyed horror, hands plastered over her mouth, and shakes her head. He seems to sense the movement, if only barely. He waits a beat for a better answer but does not receive one.

“It’s okay to come out here. I’m not going to hurt you,” he coaxes, “—Neither will my friend.” She can make out Jean begrudgingly sheathing his sword. Marco sticks a long arm through the opening and extends his hand toward her.

She shrinks from him at first. Her heart still in frozen suspension, she bites the insides of her cheeks.

He wiggles his fingers. “Come on,” he says, “It’s okay.”

Then, she uncoils herself and begins to creep toward him, a questioning fear on her face.

“You don’t have to be so skilamalink with us.”

She gulps hard at not knowing what the word means (so odd, she thinks, how she can know her language and then find herself rather lost at the other end of the city, among people whose accents she has never heard and whose lifestyles she could never understand) –, pauses, and eventually crawls to the opening. Marco steps out of the way to allow her space, but she does not exit the tunnel, only sticks out her head enough to let the light hit her face. It stings her eyes despite its dimness.

“There you are,” Marco says gently, and he blinks an even softer smile onto his half-scarred doughface.

Jean, not as kind, lays a hand on Marco’s upper arm. “Christ, she’s not some child.” He nudges Marco aside, bows to her eyelevel, and furrows his eyebrows. “Er, shit, maybe she is.” He rests a hand on the hilt of his sword, not sure she notices. “What are you doing on our airship?”

Her lips twitch a bit, and she forces herself to focus on the space beyond him. “I wanted to return the spice I had dropped on the dock.” Her voice is small but steady. She flits her eyes back to his.

“Oh, you’re the bird from the other day, in Stohess,” Marco exclaims, his face brightening at the memory.

Jean cocks an eyebrow, straightens his back and frowns at Marco. “What ‘bird from the other day’?”

“She was trying to help Nac load the cargo. I had to stop him from doing her down.” Marco extends a hand toward her. “I can help you out of there.”

For a moment here in the light she studies his slender fingers, the oily black dirt lining his nails, and the freckly mottling on his skin. She lays her hand on his palm with hesitation. He takes her other hand, too – his right one is fake, she can feel the prosthetic metal –, and helps her balance as she slithers out of the vent opening.

She is even smaller than they predicted, her head coming up to only about their chests, her face youthful and fragile. A greasy sheen coats her golden blond hair, and her clothes are expensive but designed to seem cheap.

“Where’s the spice?” Jean asks, scanning her from bottom to top with sharp hazel eyes.

She clenches her fists behind her back. She keeps her head down. “I have already returned it,” she replies.

Marco chuckles. “Well, we appreciate the thought, but you didn’t have to sneak onto our ship just to give it back.” He steals an almost worried glance at the opening. “What is your name?” He sees that Jean still has not taken his hand off his sword, and so he grabs Jean’s wrist and lifts it away.

“Christa Lenz,” she blurts.

The men exchange looks. Jean’s face grows taut with condescension, while Marco’s eyebrows gather in the middle, which makes him appear sympathetic or perhaps confused. She draws her shoulders forward in defense, in panic, paling.

“Well, Christa,” Jean says at last, a little darkly, “You should know it’s not acceptable to board an airship without the crew’s permission.”

“I am sorry,” she says.

He scowls deeper. “Being sorry doesn’t excuse a mistake.” The cold singing sound of metal cuts into her ears. She shudders and goes weak in the knees, and Jean holds the blade of his sword to her neck. “Now, do you want to be thrown overboard, or would you rather I cut off your head right here?” She coughs as the sharp edge pushes on her larynx.

“Jean, stop!” Marco grabs Jean’s shoulders from behind. “She doesn’t deserve to die! She was only trying to help. Please.”

Jean glares down at her, keeping his sword still against her pretty neck.

Maybe death isn’t so bad. Maybe it’s not so scary. Maybe it is not as painful as she has been warned – happens so fast she won’t feel a thing. Maybe it is as relieving as she has fantasized it to be.

She is so petite, anyway, that her weight on the ship would not matter.

Just when his hand starts to quiver, he pulls away his sword, a heavy-hearted look on his face. “It’s my job to keep out unwanted passengers,” he grumbles. He slips his sword back into its sheath and shakes off Marco’s grip.

“Christa meant well,” Marco argues. “I think she can be useful. She was skilled enough to make it onto our ship without anybody noticing, after all.”

The sensation of a soaring heartbeat finally catches up to her, knocking the air out of her lungs.

Jean merely grunts. “The captain won’t be happy about this.” He meets eyes with Christa. The aggression in his face is leaving at a fast rate, though she cannot identify the mood that replaces it.

“It’s your head or mine,” he warns. He then heads for the door.

“Wait,” Marco calls after him. Jean stops in his tracks and turns on his heels. “I’ll report this to the captain in your stead. I’m not directly responsible, so she may be more reasonable with me.”

Jean scoffs, but a relieved smile belies his tough act. Marco smiles back to reassure him. And Christa, not at all sure what’s going on, takes a cautious sidestep away from the two men.

Many tense, silent minutes later, Marco returns. “The captain wants to see both of you,” he says. His voice is quiet and grim. He has brought someone else with him, a boy who must be around Christa’s age.

“Shit.” Jean covers his face with one of his spidery hands.

Christa hides behind Jean’s back, as if he could protect her from the sinking feeling in her gut.

Marco raises his arms. “I think I swayed her, but she still wants to meet you in person.”

Jean takes the hand off his face and claps Marco on the back with it. “You’re the pied freaking piper,” he says.

“Then again,” Marco cautions, rubbing the back of his neck sorely, “It’s Captain Ymir. Usually, once she forms an impression of a person, her mind can’t be changed.” His arms drop to his sides, and he leans slightly to peek at Christa’s face. “For all I know she could have already made up her mind about the situation, and not in the way we’re hoping for.”

“But you swayed her,” Jean says.

Marco nods. “There is a chance.”

“She’s in a good mood today, actually,” the boy reports. He is short and his hair shaved so close to his scalp that it almost is not there at all, but he runs his hand over the top of his head as if it is long and luxurious. He starts toward the door, the rest following.

“You’re lucky, birdy,” Jean says to her.

She keeps pace beside him. “Thank you for taking mercy on me,” she replies.

He shakes his head. “That’s not in my hands anymore, but you’re welcome, I guess.” He lifts his chin to indicate Marco. “It’s all his doing. He’s the nice one.”

She looks at the back of Marco’s head and thanks him for sticking up for her. He turns to see her, a mix of surprise and humility on his face. They are at about the middle of the ship, having passed the kitchen and some cabinspace.

“Even if the captain does decide to keep you on our ship,” he says, “You won’t be more than a powder monkey or engine room drone, unfortunately. Jean will get to choose what you do, but Ymir won’t allow him to let you do anything respectable.”

The boy ahead of them sucks air through his teeth. “I started as a monkey. It’s rough.”

Her attention snaps from Marco to Jean to the boy, and then she shakes her head. “I don’t know what that means,” she admits. All at once the four of them stop moving. The men gawk at her under the filtered light, and exchange worried glances. Her heart jumps into her throat.

Jean grumbles and bends down to meet Christa’s eyes directly. He takes on a strict look.

“Okay, first,” he says, and he pokes the end of a bony finger against her sternum, “For the next few minutes, we are all going to pretend you did not just say that.”

She frowns and almost says something, but bites her tongue, and nods.

“When we go in there, you’re going to let Marco, Connie” – he gestures at the close-to-bald boy with them – “and me do all the talking, got it?”

“Yes,” she replies.

Marco, from behind Jean, reads the confused look on her face. “We’ll help you,” he says. Connie nods.

Jean stands and faces Marco. “Speak for yourselves,” he scoffs. “A stowaway is still a stowaway. In the end it’s my ass on the line.”

“Jean—” Marco’s tone is reprimanding, but his cheek pales a bit as though he does not know what else to say. With a huff Jean starts toward the captain’s quarters again. Marco swallows once – others can see it in the way his neck muscles bob –, throws Christa an apologetic glance, and canters after his friend.

She steels herself and follows. Connie catches up to her. “Sorry about him – about everyone,” he says, his voice low.

“It is all right.” Christa shakes her head. “I brought this on myself.”

Connie chews her words without knowing how to digest them. “Jean’s kind of a grouch, but once you get to know him, he’s reasonable.”

“I gathered that,” she says. She sucks her lips into her mouth, grazing her teeth against the insides of them.

Not everyone in the world can be kind. Christa has known this for a long time, and though the lesson is never taught the same way twice, she has learned to accept it. She has read all the fables and fairytales, the Bible, the history books. She fell in love at the start with the idea of karma, doing unto others as one wishes to be done unto. Hard work. Positivity. She does what she can to be gentle and forgiving, to love those who do not show love back in the hopes of – she doesn’t know, anymore. The hopes of brightening others’ day. She doesn’t want others to feel like her.

But not everyone is kind. Not everyone believes in karma the same way she does.

If she had known how much trouble she would cause, she would not have boarded the ship.

“You’re gonna be fine,” Connie says at last, and he lays a hand between her shoulderblades. They find themselves standing right outside the door to the captain’s quarters. She cautions a smile at him, and he takes his hand off her back and parts Jean and Marco to open the door first. Jean shoots her a sharp look over the shoulder. “Here they are, Cap’n.”

The moment Christa lays eyes on her, every last doubt leaves her mind: this is definitely no ordinary airship.

***

Captain Ymir is a tall, dark and handsome woman. She sits slouched on a chair in the corner. When the four of them enter her quarters, she rises to her feet in one fluid motion and starts to pace.

Connie stands beside the door as if on guard. He seems tired.

“Jean,” she says, and he immediately stiffens, “I expected more from you.”

He grits his teeth. His eyes move away from her, to the bow-facing window behind her desk or the seam between wall and ceiling. “Captain, you know we were stepping short to get out of Stohess. I didn’t have the time to fully secure the ship.” He looks to her again and she stops pacing.

“Is that a fucking excuse?” she snaps. The unidentifiable brown lump on top of the desk stretches, showing itself to be a large-framed cat.

He shakes his head. “No, Captain.”

“Sounded like it.” She takes a few calculated steps toward him.

“Okay, all right, I fucked up,” he declares. He slaps his hands against the sides of his legs. In the background, Marco bows his head. “But you know she came onto the ship to return some of our cargo that we left behind.”

Jeans lifts one arm toward Christa, and she jumps and shrinks away and it takes every ounce of strength in her tiny, trembling body to not bolt out of the room when the captain’s gaze lands heavy and cold on her.

The captain stands in front of Christa – she towers over Christa by nearly a foot. Christa can smell the old leather and traces of alcohol on her, see the freckles on her skin. The captain lifts her chin with her long-nailed fingers and studies her with her wise golden eyes. Christa dry-gulps and wrings her hands behind her back. At length, the edges of the captain’s lips curl into a snarling smile.

“What a pretty little bird,” the captain says, her voice deceptively softer. A chill races down Christa’s spine. She turns Christa’s head to one side, to the other. Her tone sharpens: “It’s dangerous out here for pretty people like you.” She lets go, and all the sudden Christa can breathe again. “What’s your name?”

“Christa Lenz,” she says. She feels so robotic, speaking the name. Chanting it in her head. Christa Lenz, Christa Lenz.

The captain huffs once through the nose and takes half a step back. “You know, in my world, a person doesn’t tell others their full name unless it’s fake or they’re just stupid.” Her smile is gone. She pays her a last glance, turns and stalks toward the back of the room.

Christa clenches her arm muscles and grits her teeth, but the words well in her throat.

“I don’t think I’m stupid,” she mumbles.

And instantly she tenses. That was the wrong, wrong thing to say.

The captain stops and eyes her. “What did you say?” The weight of her gaze hits Christa again like a train plows over roadkill.

Christa, breathless, shakes her head from side to side.

The captain raises her eyebrows. “I didn’t quite catch what you said,” she repeats, more impatient.

“It was nothing,” Christa says.

But the captain continues to stare her down with bladed eyes. “I am not the benevolent leader you may have hoped I would be, Christa Lenz.” The words cut into Christa’s very soul – she feels it in her gut, in the ringing in her ears.

She scowls at Marco, and then marches to the back of the room, where she can see their every movement. Behind her, the airship flies directly into a cirrus cloud, which plasters the windowpane with a whitish color.

“What do you think, boys? Could we use a new powder monkey?” She adds – and they cannot tell whether it is in jest or not, “That or roll her into a rug and throw her overboard.”

“She could work in the engine room.” Connie’s voice is careful.

“We already have enough expendable jackasses in the engine room,” the captain retorts. She sets a hand on her hip. “We need more expendable jackasses on deck.”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Marco pipes up.

She holds back a snort. “Of course you do.”

Jean claps his hands together. “Well, that’s that, then.”

Christa’s chest feels tight. She pivots to look at Marco. He doesn’t seem to notice her. Some of the concern, however, lifts off his face.

The captain takes one step forward. Her boots clunk on the wood planked floor. “Marco, Dumbass, Monkey,” she says, her eyes flitting to each as she addresses them, “Out of my sight.” She waves a dismissive hand. Her eyes fix on Jean in a glare. “I need to speak with Jean _alone_.”

Christa – “Monkey” gapes at the captain. Marco lays his mechanical hand on her back and gently corrals her out of the room. She doesn’t even feel her legs as she moves. Connie is the last out, closing the door behind them.

***

By her second or third week on the crew of this airship – _Maria_ , its name is, actually painted in sun-faded letters on the stern –, Christa knows the ins and outs of life with her crewmates. She finds out at various degrees of difficulty that the position of powder monkey is the lowest of the low. And she has no problem with this. She knows she is inexperienced and unwelcomed here, and she is used to being treated like dirt, anyway.

Marco the bosun, a former military bird, is far kinder than the average. He is a friend to all, gentle and supportive. Working for Marco involves accompanying him on daily inspections, and making visits on his behalf to the engine room, the cargo hold and sometimes the weapon storeroom. (She is glad she was not assigned to the engine room. Nac and Millius work there, as well as Hannah, Franz, Thomas and Samuel. They are a little too rough around the edges to relate to Christa.)

Jean, the quartermaster and Ymir’s first mate, warms up to her, too, eventually, and she finds that Connie was right about him. He’s a hardass, brutally honest and occasionally a nagger, but still not that bad of a person. He distributes pay and food, settles disputes, assigns chores, and becomes the entire crew’s enemy every morning when he wakes them up. Through association she has found that he and Marco split jobs all the time – Jean and Marco are together a lot, actually. They even share a bed, she learns.

The master carpenter Sasha is a sweet, creative lady with a fun sense of humor. A big-sister type. Most of the time, when she asks for Christa’s help, she makes her do hardly anything, since Christa isn’t exactly the most technically skilled. Sasha hangs out with Jean and Marco frequently, for two reasons: she performs ship maintenance with Marco, and she has discovered that being buddy-buddy with Jean earns her extra rations at mealtimes.

Sometimes Christa helps Daz, the cook, in the kitchen. He’s an easygoing but weak-willed guy. He is so terrified of heights that he hardly ever goes to the deck while the airship is in motion. Sometimes she also helps the conscientious and tenderhearted Mina, who acts as doctor whenever a crewperson is sick or injured. (Again, lots of exposure to engine room people. Christa does not like to pass judgment on others, but nonetheless she prefers to avoid that scene as much as she can with the near-nonexistent influence she has.)

She is rarely called to the cockpit. It’s the control room of the airship, where Keith the pilot and Armin the navigator, well, pilot and navigate. Every once in a while Captain Ymir comes storming in to receive a status update or propose (read: demand) a change of course. Mad-as-hops Eren, the master armorer, spends a good amount of time there, and wherever he is his stoic sister Mikasa, the master gunner, is usually not far behind. If they’re not in the cockpit they can likely be found in the weapon storeroom or on the deck, though sometimes they meet with the captain to talk battle strategies.

The captain herself never asks for Christa’s help – rather, she behaves as though Christa does not even exist. When Captain Ymir feels more want than usual, her orders trickle through Connie the cabin boy, to whom she oh-so-affectionately refers as “Dumbass.” Jean and Marco are not nearly as cruel to him, but it is the captain who uses Connie the most by far. Connie is a good friend, always cracking jokes, relating to people easily and doing everything he can. But he and Captain Ymir butt heads nearly nonstop, and about every other day he unloads his rage toward his demeaning position on anybody with enough sympathy to listen.

At times the work of a powder monkey on the _Maria_ can be grueling. It is difficult to escape the obligations that come with living on what is, for all practical purposes, a small, manmade, airborne island. At other times Christa feels that it is a blessing. The crewmembers are close-knit. Everyone is a rebel – it’s refreshing, if not rather anxious. Most of the crew – the captain tends to exclude herself – treats her well, accepting her into their strange pirate family, which is one of the best things she could ask for. As long as she does not ask them questions about their lives, they ask no questions about hers, and that is exactly what she needs right now, riding anxious the long way to Shiganshina.

The ship has to land at Dauper for a day. It spends time at a docking tower while Marco, Sasha, Franz and Hannah refuel and make repairs, and Keith and Armin catch up on sleep. Jean leads the rest of the crew into town to blow off steam. Christa decides to stay on the airship, to help with maintenance and guarding the cargo hold. She wonders what could be in there that is so important, anyway.

***

Marco lays the cards fanned in his hand on the table. “I, uh, have to fold.” He picks up a tiny screwdriver and continues to tinker with his mechanical arm.

Eren looks Jean straight in the eyes and scowls, and nudges a couple of his chips to the center of the table.

“Alright,” Mikasa says flatly. Sasha and Connie nod and the remaining five of them display their hands. Eren’s four-of-a-kind beats Jean’s flush.

“Bloody hell!” Jean hisses. “You’re fucking broading, ya scoundrel.”

Eren lifts his thick eyebrows, snickers and sweeps all the chips toward himself. “Hey, whether I’m cheating or not, looks like you owe me ten more doubloons – no slumming.”

He’s not cheating – Christa can see his hand from where she sits observing their weekly game. Unless there are more intricacies to poker than she has seen.

Jean always accuses him, though, regardless. He scoffs and furrows his eyebrows at Christa. “Can you believe this motherfucker?” he demands. She just forces a smile at him.

“It’s not his fault you suck at playing flats,” Sasha says. She holds back a cackle but Connie busts into laughter, and Jean glares at the two of them.

Suddenly the phone hanging on the closest wall rings out, and everyone freezes.

Christa has never heard the phone ring until now – she has never seen anybody use the ship’s internal communication system before. Nothing has ever been so pressing that someone couldn’t just run a flight or two of stairs to send a message.

An intense expression comes over Marco’s face. He sets down the screwdriver, stands, and pads over to the phone, all slowly and methodically as if he’s afraid the thing will explode. He takes the receiver in one hand and holds it toward the others to hear, and uses his other hand to crank the volume louder. “Yes?”

It’s Armin. “We have company,” he says, tersely. “There’s another ship in our airspace.”

“Who?” Eren says. He makes a move like he’s standing. _No one else should—_

“Looks like the _Warrior_ , from here,” Armin says.

Marco, Jean, Eren, Mikasa, Sasha and Connie exchange nervous looks. Christa bites her bottom lip.

“Has the captain seen it?” Connie asks.

Captain Ymir chimes in: “I was the one who spotted it first. Everyone, get your asses on deck.”

“Roger,” Marco responds, and he sets the receiver on its hook.

Jean is the next to leave his chair. “You heard her. Let’s get a move on.” His voice is shaky, movements are stiff, face is taut with emergency. Marco rubs circles into his upper back to soothe him as they ascend the stairs. Christa lingers apprehensive at the back of the group.

Captain Ymir stands at the port side, squinting and leaning over the railing. She senses them approaching from behind. “That’s them, all right,” she mutters, and stands straight. Her words make everybody stop in their tracks. She turns on her heels to face her crew.

“What do we do?” Connie asks. “What’s the plan?”

Eren looks past her at the figure in the not-too-distant distance. “At that velocity, it’s bound to hit us. We can’t change our direction dramatically, at this point – not without upheaving all our shit. We need to change altitude.”

“We can’t fucking change our altitude.” The captain rubs her forehead with her thumb and forefinger as though trying to dispel a headache. “They’ll just go up or down with us.”

“We have to confront them,” Jean says grimly. Captain Ymir meets eyes with him, and nods.

She tells about half of them to stay on deck while she, “Dumbass”, Eren and Marco try to communicate with the other airship on the telegraph in her quarters. If _Maria_ can’t establish contact, or if something unexpected happens, the crew is to convene immediately.

Christa tugs on Sasha’s sleeve just lightly enough to not alarm her. “What is going on?” she whispers.

All Sasha says is, “We have problems with the _Warrior_.” Christa frowns.

They watch the other airship approaching, approaching. It is different in shape and heavier, equipped with more pipes and propellers but not at all with balloons. And it is armed to the teeth. The sight of it looming closer makes Christa stumble back a bit.

She spies Connie bounding up from the stairs toward the cockpit, and she is not the only one. Mikasa stops him. “Are we crashing?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “They want to talk, in person.” His weight shifts back and forth – he is in constant motion to express his nervous energy. “They want us to land.”

Now that Christa looks at the sky around them again, she notices that both airships are indeed dropping in altitude. All at once she feels it, too, her innards floating upward inside her body. Her throat constricts, stomach sloshes. She guesses they are complying with the _Warrior_ ’s wishes – er, compliance does not really fit Captain Ymir’s style. Negotiating, more likely.

Everyone follows Connie into the cockpit with hesitation. Captain Ymir talks to them via phone throughout the descent.

“When we land, they want just me and Jean to disembark,” she reports as she hears. “They wanted us to board their ship, but I refused, so we are meeting at a neutral location between our airships. They want to talk some sort of deal, it seems.” There is a bit of a shuffling noise on the other end of the line.

The air in the room feels so dense that hardly anybody can breathe. Jean is more anxious than anybody, tapping his foot incessantly on the metal floor.

“Eren, Mikasa.” The two of them straighten their backs. “While I’m gone, you two set up the cannons and make sure everyone has their guns. Try to be as discreet about it as possible.”

“Yes, Captain,” Eren replies. Mikasa nods once as if the captain can see her.

Christa grabs her own elbows. She has heard cannonfire only once: blanks, in friendly fire, when the royal air force flew their ships over her town to celebrate a major victory for the Kingdom of Germania in the war against the Republic of Titans. This, however, is no celebration. That much she can tell.

Having been rushed, the landing is shaky, abrupt, and makes Keith spit a series of curses.

The captain and her cabin boy appear in the door not even a minute later. “Jean.” He jumps to his feet.

Christa’s heart is in her throat. She has never been so aware of the blades at everybody’s sides. Jean’s smallsword, Mikasa’s katana, Sasha’s hunting sword, Connie’s pocketknife – and her stomach turns in on itself. She has no sword, no skill, nothing.

The two airships have landed in the middle of nowhere, as far as they can tell. They lie buzzing on the soft clay ground not far from the structures of some abandoned hamlet. Just as Jean and Captain Ymir open the gate in the railing, the hatch door on the _Warrior_ comes open as well.

Sasha circles back to Christa. “See those two men?” She points across the way to the figures emerging from the hatch. Christa nods. “The blond one is their captain Reiner, and the tall bloke with him is his first mate Bertholdt.” Christa squints.

“What do we have against them?” she asks.

“I don’t know, to be honest with you,” Sasha says. “We’ve been feuding with them since before I was hired. My theory is it’s something personal between Ymir and Reiner.”

Christa watches them from the deck for a moment. The four meet in the grassy stretch between the two airships. She can’t hear any of their voices, but she sees them gesticulating, and she can intuit how uneasy Jean and Bertholdt are.

When she finally looks away, Marco and Mina are locking a cannon into place beside her. She steps toward them. “What can I do to help?”

“I think Eren could use somebody in the store,” Marco says, and he points a metal finger in the direction of the stairs.

Christa nods and scurries down to the bottom level of the airship, where she finds the armorer pulling rifles off shelves. Within a minute Eren has her struggling to roll a powder keg up three spiral staircases, while he trails her with armfuls of guns. After she makes it up to the deck, Mikasa flags her down.

“Do you know how to work these?” she asks, laying a hand on the butt of a cannon. Christa shakes her head. Mikasa frowns and studies her a little. “Actually, may be too big for you to handle. Ever shot a gun?” Christa shakes her head again. Mikasa just sighs.

“I can learn,” Christa says. “I am a quick learner.”

“I sure hope so.” Mikasa adjusts her shirt collar, jogs to Eren, takes two rifles by the barrels, and brings them back.

Captain Ymir yells something – no one is sure what, but her voice echoes off the metal bodies of the ships. Everyone freezes for a second.

Mikasa scowls and hands Christa the smaller of the rifles. “We may not have time.”

“It’s simple,” Sasha says, walking over to them. Mikasa makes her way to another part of the deck. Sasha takes Christa by the shoulders and turns her body so that neither of them aims at the _Warrior_ – could be a misunderstanding. She expertly demonstrates how to load it, hold it, aim it, fire it. Most of the terminology goes over Christa’s head, but in the end her form is good enough to satisfy Sasha, who grew up hunting in the backwoods of Dauper.

She claps Christa on the back, then, and smiles. “You’ve got quite a look on your face.”

“I’ve never had the occasion to—” To fire a weapon. To hear cannons at close range. To feel so confused and endangered that she has to fight back. She swallows hard. The rifle stings in her grasp. “I have never been in battle.”

Sasha’s smile shrinks with worry. “It might do you good to stay back, since you’re so new,” she advises. Christa pales.

“—But don’t you lose your head!” She raises her voice. “It’s not for sure that we’re going into battle with these guys. Sometimes they let us get away clean.”

Sometimes.

Sasha pats her a few more times and shuffles away to help Armin anchor another cannon. Christa stands alone there, watching everyone, and wondering how many lives have been lost because of this rivalry.

On the ground, Jean and Captain Ymir part rather abruptly from Bertholdt and Captain Reiner. They gallop up the stairs to the deck.

“Marco.” Jean’s voice has a sense of desperation to it. Marco perks up, and when Jean comes close he tugs Marco forward by the shirt and kisses him hard. For a fraction of a second afterward Jean seems almost relieved. Then he tenses up all over again.

“Cap and I have doubts,” he says.

Marco’s face is suddenly mournful. He stiffens his shoulders. “You don’t think they’re—?”

“I don’t know,” Jean replies, turning away a bit. “Ymir does.”

Captain Ymir, having sent Connie to the cockpit to relay takeoff orders, summons her master gunner and armorer. “Is everything set up?”

“Everyone is armed and ready, Captain,” Eren says. He gulps. “Are we going to strike first?”

She thinks for a few seconds, peeking over her shoulder at the _Warrior_. “Maybe. Our priority is a getaway.”

 _Maria_ is a speedy airship by default. The crewmen in the cockpit and engine room know to go full speed ahead.

It is never a good sign when a fast ship has to go faster.

“Regardless, I want all hands on deck during liftoff,” the captain continues.

“That’s dangerous,” Mikasa asserts.

The captain gives her a look as if to say, _Do you think I care?_

“But people could fall overboard without something to anchor them,” Eren argues.

Captain Ymir scrunches her nose. Over their shoulders she notices the short blond girl halfway across the deck. Her eyebrows furrow. “Oi, Monkey,” she calls. Distantly the _Warrior_ starts its engine – before _Maria_ , a good sign.

Christa jumps. She glances about and looks wide-eyed at the captain, who curtly waves her over. Christa tenses, tingling, and slinks toward them. The captain’s golden eyes are even colder than usual.

“You stowed away,” Captain Ymir says. “Were you inside the ship when we took off from Stohess?”

Christa hesitates a bit. Her eyes flit to Jean and Marco, out of earshot. She shakes her head.

“How did you stay on deck without falling?” She speaks as if words are knives that can bleed the answers out of her.

“I – held onto some secured cargo,” Christa says.

“Everything’s in the hold now, though,” Eren mumbles.

“No shit,” Captain Ymir barks. She eyes Christa again. “How difficult was it?”

Christa, more anxious than before, hunches her shoulders. “I had to use the crates to stand, and even with that I could not be on my feet for more than a minute or two.”

“Well, you’re scrawny, so anybody else would probably last a little longer.” The captain glances across the deck. “Let’s try the railing.”

Mikasa, Eren and Christa start. He opens his mouth to protest, but by that point, the captain is already walking away. “Armin,” she calls, “How steady is Keith’s hand right now?”

Eren shakes his head. “Is she off her fucking chump?” he spits.

Mikasa looks to him. “We’ll be able to hold on.”

“It’s not that,” he says. His face is taut with a different kind of anger from the norm.

The _Warrior_ is actually ascending now. It is very loud even from here. Everyone should be relieved, but they still hold their breaths.

Christa sees some of the crew piling onto the deck from the cabins: Daz, Samuel who is still nursing a twisted ankle, Hannah, Franz, Mina. How can the airship take off and fly at full speed with only three people in the engine room? She turns to speak to Eren or Mikasa again, but both of them are gone.

“We’re about to lift off,” Jean announces from the gate he is closing. He immediately has everyone’s attention. “Grab onto the railing and don’t let go.”

One of the other crewmembers tries to debate this, but Jean just shakes his head. “Captain’s orders.”

The only time the captain has absolute, universal, unquestionable authority is in battle. True, her opinion is one of the weightiest in making other major decisions. But the captain is the captain for a reason.

Christa throws frantic looks in all directions. Suddenly she feels frozen, exposed, and overwhelmingly dense. She breathes in, can’t breathe out, breathes in again—

—A voice is calling her name. She finds Marco waving at her, rushes toward him, sits beside him and clenches fists around the rail. Samuel sits at her opposite side, Daz just beyond him.

“We’re gonna get hit.” She can hear Daz’s shaky, fretful mumbles. He gulps hard. “We’re gonna fall. I’m gonna fall. I’m gonna go headfirst over the railing, it’s gonna happen.”

“No one is going to fall overboard,” Marco says. His voice is soothing and steady as always.

Christa’s heart flutters, and not in a good way. Her knuckles go white. She tilts her head toward the _Warrior_. “See? They are already taking off.” Though Christa says this more to herself, with her and Marco’s calming words, Daz quiets.

Then, out of nowhere, their own engine screams into power. _Maria_ pulls forward with a jerk. Half the crewmembers yelp in surprise.

Keith starts to shift the ship to the right before it is more than a few yards off the ground. The deck tilts with the movement. Daz wails, and Samuel shushes him.

Christa peers to her side. Marco has a hand poised over his sabre. His breaths are deep and conscious.

Soon the _Warrior_ seems to be going further and further away, and the higher _Maria_ rises, the faster it moves. The wind picks up, messing her long hair.

She looks at the cannon closest to her, and then at Marco. “Do you think we’re in the clear?” she asks just loudly enough for him to hear over the engine noise.

He presses his lips together as though he’s trying to decide whether to be optimistic or realistic. “Soon, probably.” Cautiously optimistic.

The strap holding the rifle over her shoulder feels too, too tight all the sudden. She forces herself to breathe despite it. When she looks out at the sky again, the _Warrior_ is turning.

Turning toward them.

She cannot feel the wind or the vibrating deck – everything freezes. She looks past Samuel and sees Daz curled into the fetal position, rocking, death grip on the rail, head bowed low. Samuel talk-sings a shanty under his breath. Otherwise he is completely still. She turns. Marco curls his mechanical fingers around the strap holding his gun. She cannot read his expression from this side – he stares straight ahead – but she makes out his neck muscles swallowing. She feels a chilling numbness. She looks out at the _Warrior_. She swears she sees one of the cannons on its starboard side twitch, and watches a tiny black shadow burst from it.

She opens her mouth and sucks in a desperate breath.

“Get out of the way!” Eren screams.

Four – five – seven people scramble from the bow. The cannonball knocks against the metal plate just barely underneath the railing there. The sound booms above all else. The other _Warrior_ cannons shoot one by one.

Captain Ymir’s voice comes from nowhere and everywhere at once. “Ready!”

Marco throws himself at the cannon to his left. He picks up a ball, drops it into the barrel, dumps in powder after it and swings it forward. “Aim!” He grabs the cord sticking out the butt of it.

Christa shuffles backward and covers her ears with her hands.

“Fire!” The thunder of every cannon blowing at once shakes her to the bone.

Some of _Maria_ ’s shots collide with the _Warrior_ ’s midair. One of the _Warrior_ ’s shots misses by far, sailing clear past _Maria_ ’s stern.

She hears another shot from the _Warrior_ – heading straight in her direction. She jumps back, and Samuel jumps back. They watch it zoom closer for a second.

“Daz!” She leaps and tackles Daz, sending him tumbling out of the way. He shrieks.

She yelps and dashes to the side. The ball misses her head by mere inches.

He and Christa watch the ball land many yards away, put a mighty dent in the metal floor of the deck, and roll ineffectually toward the stern. “Jesus Christ,” Samuel breathes.

“Are you alright?” Marco yells to them. His hand is on the cord but he waits for their response.

Christa nods furiously, and she suddenly becomes very, very aware of her pounding heartbeat.

Marco yanks the cord a couple seconds later. He’s on his feet from the shock.

A series of bangs comes from the _Warrior_ ’s direction. But when she looks, only one or two of their cannons gone off.

The ship has to be going – she doesn’t even know, they’re motoring ahead of the _Warrior_ faster and faster and it can’t keep up, it’s starting to slip behind but it just keeps firing.

She is not sure whether to use her rifle – if it would be useful at this distance. She rises to her knees and searches for Sasha. She doesn’t find her, but nobody else has out their gun.

“Need more powder!” Mikasa yells.

Christa’s eyes lock on a keg just yards away. She lunges at it, tears her bag out from under her jacket, shovels as much powder as she possibly can into it, and when it’s full bounds to Mikasa’s cannon. She snatches the bag closed. “Mikasa!” Mikasa spins toward her and Christa tosses the bag in her direction. Mikasa catches it seamlessly.

Connie, at the cannon next to hers, waves his arms. “Christa!” She runs to him. She’s near the bow now. Sasha is with him.

“First of all, you’re a natural,” he says.

She is so hopped up on adrenaline she does not know how to respond, does not respond to this at all.

“Second of all—”

A strident crack cuts him off, and then Hannah crying, “Franz!” Connie swallows hard and pales.

“Get us more ammo,” Sasha says.

“Yes!” Before Christa can even think she’s already halfway to the pile of balls at the closest keg. They are much heavier than a bag full of powder. She heaves two into her arms and sprints back with them.

“That’s new,” she hears Eren say, and he wrenches his cord.

Christa glances over her shoulder and a volley of smaller, white-colored cannonballs rain down on the stern from out of nowhere. But she cannot stop. She cannot just stop carrying her load.

She reaches Sasha and Connie and plunks one of the balls into the barrel. Connie pulls the cord immediately, and with a dash more powder they’re ready for Christa to drop in the second.

They ask her for even more and she runs toward the pile – she drops flat to the deck and ducks for cover from the incoming enemy cannonfire. Little white balls fall everywhere around her. One plops into the open keg, spraying powder onto her hair. She exclaims.

She remains huddled there an extra few seconds after the hail ends. Then she grabs four cannonballs and drags them over to Connie and Sasha.

This time she spies the white balls while they’re still in the air. She spins her rifle clumsily onto her shoulder, crouches, and shoots only once – the gun kicks too much and she misses.

“Here – switch,” Sasha says. She and Christa shuffle into each other’s places.

Sasha drops to one knee, takes aim with her gun, and knocks away a ball at a time. Hardly any make it to the deck. She jumps to the side to avoid them. She pulls out her sword and whacks away a ball that would have hit Connie squarely in the chest.

Connie taps Christa on the shoulder. “Come on! I need powder!”

“Sorry!” she says. She pours some into the open cannon barrel and he pushes in another ball. She covers her ears. He pulls.

Sasha cusses, and scrambles to reload her rifle.

Mikasa screams for Eren. He tucks and rolls toward her. A barrage of white balls batters his cannon.

Captain Ymir scoops up about seven cannonballs off the top of the pile and hurls them in Mikasa’s direction. Eren grabs them halfway there. The captain kicks an overturned keg back up, and then bowls five balls at Connie. “Fuckin’ fire, you pansies! We’re outgunned!” She takes half a dozen balls in her arms and sprints like a gazelle toward the stern.

Christa dumps the last of her powder into the cannon. It’s good enough for two more shots, which Connie makes one immediately after the other. Sasha sees that they’re out and walks backward to the keg, firing throughout. Christa brings over all the ammo the captain tossed to them.

By now the _Warrior_ is only able to aim at _Maria_ ’s stern. Connie, at _Maria_ ’s frontmost mortar, has to angle his weapon rather dramatically. Once Sasha retrieves the powder, Connie shoots off one of the enemy’s main propellers. “Bullseye!” He pumps a fist in the air. He and Christa prep for another shot right away.

Christa barely hears a series of white balls patter against the hull. Connie wrenches the cord.

Mikasa appears out of nowhere beside Sasha. “Hold your fire,” she says. She sticks up a hand.

Connie cocks an eyebrow at her, but he obeys.

 _Maria_ has completely overtaken the other ship. Eren points his nose to the sky. “I think they’ve stopped.”

“They’re slowing down, that’s for sure,” Sasha concedes. She lowers her gun. Holding her breath, Christa eases onto her feet.

They look sternward. No more shots fall.

Suddenly she hears Jean call for the ship’s doctor from across the deck, and furrows her eyebrows. Mina, near the damaged cannon Eren abandoned, stands and bounds toward the rearmost cannon.

“Oh, crap,” Connie whispers, and a feeling of dread presses down on them all. Eren is the first of them to go to the stern, Mikasa at his side in a second. Sasha drops her rifle and starts to run. Connie and Christa exchange glances and race toward the other crewmembers gathering there.

“What’s going on?” Christa asks smally, slipping between Armin and Hannah.

She sees, then, Jean standing pale as a ghost and weak-kneed over Marco at the rearmost cannon. Her hand flies to her mouth.

There is blood everywhere.

***

The chandelier hanging over the table in the meeting room is dim. Most of the light comes from the wide window at the back. Bertholdt gazes out it for the umpteenth time, and sucks his lip.

Reiner lays a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure it’s fine,” he says. Bertholdt swallows loudly.

The door opens. “My apologies,” says the tardy woman who comes in, a tall man with a bolo behind her.

Reiner waves a dismissive hand.

The two of them sit at the opposite side of the table. Their uniforms are crisp and well decorated, and they carry an air about them as if they know everything that is happening at any given time. Reiner and Bertholdt don’t appear quite as official, but they still have dignity.

“Here is the contract,” the woman says. She pulls out a sheet of paper and sets a pen beside it. “Both of you are literate, I trust?”

The two just give her bashful smiles.

“Fair enough.” She picks up the paper and skims over it. “It basically states what we went over. You will be granted pardon for your past crimes and your airship will be repaired at no cost to you, while, in exchange, we will aid one another in apprehending the pirate known as Ymir.”

Reiner nods. “Sounds like it.” Bertholdt still feels unsure, but he says nothing.

“Let’s not forget,” cuts in the military man, “You’re on record stating you will help with any one other government operation of our choosing as well.”

“That’s fair,” Reiner says with a shrug.

The woman smiles and scoots the contract and pen in front of the pirates. “Sign if you can, then, or give us at least some sort of mark.”

Bertholdt reaches for the pen first, and scribbles something like a name at the bottom of the page.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Zoe, Captain Smith,” Reiner says.

“Thank _you_ ,” the man replies.

Bertholdt hands the pen to Reiner, who makes his own name in stiff letters. He gives it to the woman. “Lieutenant.” She takes it with a nod.

“The deed is done, then,” Captain Smith says. He stands and adjusts his coat, and reaches a hand across the table to shake with the two others. “The _Warrior_ is now an official Royal Air Force ship. Until we accomplish our missions, you’ll be under the watchful eye of us on the _Ilse Langner_.”

Reiner hates that he has to do this. He hates the military and the government, those corrupt, controlling pigs – if he could he’d take down them all, and Lord knows he’s tried over the years. But now, he smiles. Because this deal means he will finally, finally be able to get back what he lost. 


	2. Healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /flings all my responsibilities into the trash/ 
> 
> i am sorry i have not completed my springles week fic on time but this chapter (which is a little shorter & less eventful than the last) has a lot of connie and sasha interaction to sorta make up for that. 
> 
> thank you to everyone who left comments/kudos, bookmarked, and just generally supported me! i appreciate it so much and am glad y'all are just as interested in this fic as i am excited to write it. i have plans. evil, dastardly plans. 
> 
> tumblr user ascensionablaze beta'd despite being lost on mt. math homework.

The captain kicks her legs apart under her desk, pops her back, and continues to write. Or, rather, it is not so much any common, intelligible writing as it is an amalgamation of borrowed symbols in patterns of her own creation. Goopy black ink smudges the side of her left hand.

Connie sits in another chair, listening to her scrawl and twitching every once in a while. He rolls the back of his head off the wall.

After such a mild summer, autumn has come early – he swears he can feel the draft here beneath the deck.

He blinks slowly at her, and covers a yawn.

“Are you falling asleep on me?” Her voice is icy. She does not look at him, does not even lift the nib of the pen from the paper.

“Sorry,” he says, and he has to stop himself from yawning again. “I’m tired. Everyone is.”

She scrunches her nose. _That is not my concern_. He hates that he can read her.

He takes a deep breath and straightens his back. “What are you doing, anyway?” he asks.

She presses the pen extra hard on the paper – he can hear the difference, the only noise in the crisp quiet. “Making changes to crew positions.”

Connie needs a second to process this, and then he furrows his eyebrows. “That’s not your place.”

Her chair clatters backward. He gasps and his heart leaps in his chest – he’s _awake_ now – and he looks at her. She points the pen directly between his eyes, and holds it steady as if it is a sword and the ink that drips from it is his blood.

“Don’t you tell me what my place is,” she says, her growl so heavy that the air thickens throughout the room, and her glare just as lethally sharp as the proverbial weapon in her hand. “I know what it is. I know what I am doing.”

He shudders and gulps air. She lowers the pen, but only slightly.

“Go fetch me Sasha and the monkey.”

He shoots out of his chair and marches stiff as a board out of her quarters. He feels her eyes on him the entire way. The door makes no sound when he closes it.

Hati, one of the cats, squeezes out of the vent opening and pads around the room’s perimeter.

The captain drops her pen onto the paper, brings herself forward to rest her elbows on the edge of the desk, and reads over her scribbles. She lets out a hissing sigh. Hati bathes herself loudly in a corner.

Sasha and Christa shamble into the quarters after Connie, and the three of them stand in a straight line with their hands behind their backs. Sasha’s sad eyes carry a particular poignancy and she trembles like a wet small dog. Christa somehow seems resolute, at least on the outside. Captain Ymir scans all three of their faces before standing.

“Seeing as Jean is incapacitated by grief at the moment,” she says, “I decided to take matters into my own hands with crew reassignments.”

She gives Connie a respective nod. “Effective immediately, Dumbass, you are the bosun.” He bows his head and moves his feet in place. “Sasha, you are in charge of training him.”

Sasha exhales through the nose and blinks long. Connie thanks the captain in a small, weary voice.

The captain looks to Christa. Her eyes are like dull swords now: no less deadly or brilliant, but also worn. They land just as heavy. They hurt more.

“This means that you, Monkey, are the cabin girl.”

Without thinking, Christa glances at Connie, who doesn’t notice her.

“You are dismissed,” she says. She trudges to the back of the room and sits, and the three of them are gone in not even a minute. Hati materializes on top of the desk. Captain Ymir holds out a hand to stop her from walking on the still-drying ink.

Connie, Sasha and Christa stop midway through the corridor, and Sasha, sensing their ambivalence, puts one hand on each of their shoulders.

“This is good, right?” she says with a forced grin. “This is good. Christa, you’re not at the bottom of the food chain anymore. And Connie, you have wanted to be bosun for a long time.”

He jerks his shoulder back. Her hand falls. “Not like this,” he says, and he stalks toward the stairs.

Sasha grimaces, watching the back of his head leave.

Christa lays her hand on top of Sasha’s. “You are right. This is good.” She smiles and Sasha turns to her and attempts to smile back.

“Why don’t we grab some scran?” Sasha asks. That is Sasha’s solution to many things, it seems: distraction. Food is her favorite.

“Sure.” Christa tries to sound upbeat. She takes Sasha’s hand off her shoulder but still holds it a few seconds longer, and glances about. “First, though, I want to talk to Jean. I will catch up with you.”

Sasha clicks her tongue and waves over her shoulder as she turns toward the kitchen. “Maybe you’ll have better luck with him than we did.”

***

Again, she knocks, and again, there is no answer. She presses the shell of her ear to the door, pulls away frowning, and lays her hand on the knob. “I hope you’re not indecent,” she says. The door isn’t even locked.

He seems to have fallen asleep – facedown in the middle of his bed, with a near-empty bottle of vodka still in his hand. The sheets are tangled around his sprawled legs. Everything else is in disarray as well, except the toolbench.

She hurries toward him. She read once about a person who drank so much that they fell unconscious and then asphyxiated because they were on their stomach. She hooks her arms around his torso and, grunting, struggles to flip him onto his side. She studies his pink-tinted face and then brings her ear close to his mouth. He is breathing steadily. He reeks to high heavens, most strongly of alcohol.

“Jean.” She pulls the bottle out of his grip and sets it on the floor, and at this he stirs. She calls his name again. He makes a low gurgling noise.

She looks beyond him at the exposed window at the back of the room, and clambers to it to draw the curtains closed.

He rolls onto his back and lays his wrist over his eyes. “Fuck.”

“How are you feeling?” she asks, rushing to his bedside.

He covers his ears, baring his teeth and wincing. “Christa, ’zat you?” His eyes open to slits. “Jesus Horatio Christ. Don’t talk so loud.”

Her voice is actually rather hushed.

“What day is it?” he mumbles.

She tilts her head and says, “Tuesday,” and neither of them can decide whether it’s _only_ Tuesday or _already_ Tuesday. He closes his eyes and sighs soundlessly, and his arms go limp.

Christa hasn’t seen Jean in days – hardly anyone has. “We’ve all missed you,” she tells him. Without thinking she starts to wander the room, running her shirtsleeve over dusty surfaces and picking up discarded bottles. She feels filthy and weighted just breathing the stagnant air.

“Really? Didn’t notice.”

“We all love you like our brother, Jean, whether you like to think so or not.” She flaps her wrist and dust flies everywhere. “The captain herself” – she muffles a cough – “reassigned some of us so that you wouldn’t have to.”

He scoffs. “She wouldn’t do that to spare my feelings,” he says.

He sits up, with effort, and anchors one arm behind him while he uses his other hand to rub his eyes. She senses the motion and comes to him. He turns and they stare each other in the face, and there is a deep chasm between them, where the air sinks chilled and choked with dust and they are just so, so drained.

She heaves a sigh through the nose. “I am so sorry for your loss,” she says, shaking her head.

“Don’t be sorry for my loss. Be sorry for yours.” He looks away. “Marco was special to everyone.”

She bites her lip – it hits her, how vastly lonely a double-bed seems with only one person in it –, sets a knee on the edge of the bed, leans across and wraps her arms around his shoulders. The pungent alcohol stench stings her throat. She presses her forehead to his hair and closes her eyes. His skin, greased with sweat, feels hot to the touch. After a moment he slides one arm over her upper back and leans into her. Goosebumps bristle up the back of his neck. She reads the rhythm of his chest as he breathes in and out, in and out. He is alive like a tree or bed of coral is alive. He is alive surprisingly, unhappily, purposefully.

“I needed that,” he says when they pull apart at last. “Thank you.”

Christa smiles and backs onto both feet. “I know what else you need.” He faces her. “A decent meal, a shave and a clean set of sheets.”

It’s obvious he hasn’t eaten any real food in days. Ridding the beard and mustache would bring back some sense of normalcy. And the bedlinens must still smell like _him_.

“You’re right,” he admits.

She lays a gentle hand on his arm. “Why don’t you come eat with Sasha and me in the kitchen?”

He says, “Alright,” brushes off her hand and stands on his own, swaying a bit at first. She grabs him by the shoulders to steady him. She glances once to his eyes as if to ask permission, and then tugs the wrinkles out of his shirt and tries to buff out a small stain with her fingers and some saliva.

“What are you, my mother?” he jokes. She chuckles out of politeness.

***

Daz watches at them, slack-jawed. Upon collecting himself he steps out from behind the wetbar to bring them bread. Sasha seems surprised, too. But the bread comes first.

Jean asks what he has missed. It is not much, honestly. Everyone has shuffled about as little clouds in wind, gray and together but not touching. Franz is going to be fine. Eren has worked – the only one who’s really worked as of late, outside the engine room and cockpit – stanchly to repair his cannon, which by now is probably the single most advanced piece of weaponry on any civilian airship this side of Germania. Most of the damage to the hull has yet to be fixed. Because the ship has been moving so expeditiously these past several days, it has to land in no more than a week or two to refuel, and by that time it should be close to Titaner territory, finally, after a delay.

They wrapped Marco’s body and dumped it overboard – made a sort of ceremony of it, a funeral fit for a lifelong bird. Nobody told Jean because they figured he wouldn’t want to watch such a thing, and they were right. The engine room workers salvaged his mechanical arm and hung it on a wall in tribute to _Maria_ ’s best bosun to-date.

“And the captain?” Jean asks finally, looking rather blank.

Sasha half-shrugs. “The captain is her usual self.”

She offers him the last uneaten piece of bread. He receives it with some hesitation. She sets an elbow on the table. “What about you? How are you feeling?”

Jean chews thoughtfully, swallows, and sighs. “I’m not feeling much of anything, actually.” He rubs his fingers to deposit white crumbs on the tabletop. He and Sasha meet eyes. “Don’t know if that’s natural or just the alcohol.”

“Probably a little of both,” Sasha says with a grimace.

Christa leaves them to acquire more food.

Sasha huffs and lays her chin in her palm, and reads Jean from across the small table. He looks like shit, his eyes bloodshot and his clothes frowzier than he’d ever allow otherwise. His normal magnetism is subdued – strangled, almost, under a new kind of gravity.

“Now that Marco’s gone,” she says, “Are you going to take up smoking again?” She pauses for his attention. “Or is that too insensitive of me to ask?”

He shakes his head. “No. If I do, it’ll be like he was never even here in the first place. It wouldn’t be fair.”

Marco was too good for this sinful Earth. He was certainly too good for Jean. But he loved Jean anyway – for ten years, he loved him. And Jean never loved anyone else so much or so long.

If only Jean had been there to protect him. If only Jean had prevented the battle in the first place by speaking up at the meeting. If only – if only Jean had not changed Marco’s hiring agreement from temporary to permanent all those years ago.

God damn Jean. God damn the _Warrior_. God damn everything.

She nods in understanding, and he adds, “Which doesn’t seem all that profound, coming from a bloke who’s shut himself away till now.” She tests a laugh, and it is okay. Sasha did all her crying days ago. Nothing more could come out of her eyes even if she tried.

Christa returns, Daz in tow. They carry three plates with large chunks of barely-fresh trout. “Protein,” she announces, and lays one plate in front of Jean. “Important to eat when you’ve alcohol in your system.”

Jean thanks them both and Daz leaves empty-handed for water. Christa slides into the chair between them. Sasha scarfs down her meal before Jean even manages to pick at half of his.

Christa feels a little sick to the stomach. She places a hand on Jean’s shoulder and rubs his arm tenderly. He looks at her and she smiles. All at once he feels starved.

Sasha starts on a tangent, asking them what kind of fish they like. Then she delves into an anecdote about fishing, and Jean and Christa sit back, chew and let Sasha’s thick Cossack accent pour from her mouth like honey. Eventually he leaves the table – as he tells Christa with a reassuring smirk, to “trim the whiskers and remake the kife.”

***

Christa comes into the quarters, trots to the desk and sets down a tray, all while keeping her head down.

The captain looks up at her, raising her eyebrows. “What is this, now?”

“Sorry,” she mumbles.

Captain Ymir stops herself from picking up the cup on the tray, which is not actually a coffee cup at all but rather one of the less dilapidated teacups from the kitchen. The hostility returns to her face. “The hell are you apologizing for? Is this poisoned?” Her hands clench into loose fists.

“No!” Christa says. “I am only sorry that I – I likely ruined it.” She holds up empty palms.

The captain grunts once and, suspecting eyes trained on Christa, takes the cup by the rim, slurps, holds the drink in her mouth a few seconds, swallows, and lays it down.

“Well, goddamn – I like you already,” the captain declares. She takes a swig from the glass of water on the tray.

Christa smiles.

“I didn’t ask for this,” Captain Ymir says, picking up the cup to take another sip. “What possessed you to bring it to me?”

According to Connie, who has more experience than he’d like, Captain Ymir has never explicitly stated that she fancies Turkish coffee, but it does put her in a nicer mood. Christa used to make tea for her family every day. She figured Turkish coffee couldn’t be all that different or more difficult, especially if it would lift the weary captain’s spirits. Daz taught her, and showed patience through all the mistakes.

The captain scoffs and glances at the empty chair halfway across the room. “So, you brought me coffee just to be nice, then.” She sounds almost disappointed.

Christa furrows her eyebrows a little, as if to ask what is so wrong with her reasoning, but she does not receive any response to it. She glances at the bed behind her – it almost totally blends into its surroundings, small, single, tucked away, inconspicuous.

“Christa,” the captain calls, and she regains her attention. The captain gulps down the rest of the hot coffee, lowers the cup and meets her eyes. “Why are you here?”

She stiffens and glances about, unsure, and asks, “What do you mean?”

“You have told my crewmen,” she says, turning the teacup facedown, “That you wanted to return some turmeric you spilled. You and I both know that is bullshit.” She lays her elbows on the desk’s edge and rests her chin on a platform of meshed fingers.

At this Christa feels the cold, piercing sensation – not just a sensation, but a naked pain – of the captain’s glare. She studies her, like a child sits before an exotic predator at a sideshow, her exterior as stony as the iron bars that separate the child from sure death by claws and teeth. It is as if she is asking Christa, through her eyes, why she let herself be captured, why she would be captured at all. Only to question, upon meditation, which party poses the bigger threat in the end.

Or, perhaps, Christa considers as she scans the room, things are the other way round.

“I was drawn to your ship,” Christa says deliberately. “There is something fantastic about it – about the air of it, I suppose.” She shrugs. “I don’t think I can put words to why I chose _Maria_.”

The captain frowns as though this is not the path down which she wanted the conversation to turn, but she follows anyway, humming once into her knuckles. The feel of her eyes simmers a bit, away from its usual bladed rancor. She sighs and clicks her tongue.

“It was Marco, wasn’t it?” She glimpses sideways out the window.

Christa bites the inside of her lip. “I suppose you could say so.” A pang twinges in her stomach.

“Hrmph.” The captain takes her arms off the desk, leans back, sways from side to side, and meets Christa’s eyes again.

“I never liked Marco,” Captain Ymir proclaims.

It knocks the wind straight out of her.

“Whenever I interacted with him, or he interacted with others, I felt like he was being passive-aggressive. That is not something I care for much.”

Feeling flush all the sudden, Christa slides one foot a few inches backward and shifts her shoulders as if preparing to throw a punch. “I never thought of him that way,” she says, carefully defensive. “He was one of the nicest people I have ever known.” She spreads a hand over her sternum.

The captain snorts. “Being nice doesn’t make for a genuine person, Christa Lenz.” She narrows her eyes, scoots back, and stands, still hunched over the desk. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about nice people. They never did the world anything. Trust me, no one is that nice. Not without gaining something in return.” She holds Christa in her gaze for the length of a few breaths – God, so heavy, so cold, she might implode under this pressure – and sits. “Forget Marco. Fuck ‘im.”

Christa takes a moment to catch her breath. She gathers herself into a rigid and even stand, and forces her limbs to relax.

“Well,” she says – but she stops herself. She disagrees, disagrees _wholeheartedly_ but cannot say what she wants to say. No way to repair a dead body, no worth in defending someone once they’re gone forever. The captain will not take any dissent to her opinion here. And she does not have a response that would make any sort of sense, even to herself.

The captain stares her down for a short moment more, growls, and pushes the tray closer to the edge of the desk. “Take your first impression coffee back to the kitchen and get me a status report from the cockpit.”

Christa’s chest weighs a ton. She nods, takes the tray and ducks out of the quarters.

***

After braving the nip and whipping wind on the deck, she does not find the cockpit much more comfortable. At least the air is drier and stiller.

Only Eren’s head sticks out from a mountain of blankets on a daybed against the side wall. He grins that lopsided grin of his and stirs a bit, when she enters. “Christa. What’s the good word?”

She tilts her head to the side. “The captain wanted me to ask you for a status report?” Whatever that means.

Keith glimpses at her over his shoulder.

“We’re on course, and nothing unpredictable has happened to our fuel supply,” Armin says, turning to her. He shrugs. “There is nothing else the captain would want to hear. She must know all of this already.”

“She probably just wanted you out of her hair for a while,” Keith mumbles. He and Jean have been working with Ymir since before she was Captain Ymir, almost their entire careers, so they know her quirks better than just about anyone else does.

Christa hums once, looks around, sits at the opposite end of the bed and grabs at her arms. Eren tucks one of his two blankets over her without even being asked. She thanks him, and he just nods and then yawns and stretches his arms above his head.

Armin talks briefly with Captain Ymir over the phone system, and then hangs up, turns in his chair and scrutinizes Eren a minute. “You should go to bed,” he coos.

Eren protests, but the drooping of his eyelids betrays him. Soon his head lolls back and his voice trails off. Armin shakes his head at Christa and points at Eren with his thumb. “He’s like a four-year-old sometimes, this one. Works himself to the bone.”

She titters in tentative agreement. She bends her legs to her side and submerges herself in the blanket from the neck down. The fabric is worn and itchy, and she pinches off flakes of it and rolls them into balls along the length of her thumb. The trapped air between her body and the blanket grows warmer and warmer until she cannot remember the initial discomfort.

She steals a glance at Eren, now asleep, mouth open and eyes sunken in the pale light, and then for a while she watches the vivid afternoon blue of the sky through the window. She counts the number of clouds the airship plows into, and tries to read the astrolabe from here, not that she has any idea what to look for in an astrolabe.

“Where are we going?” she asks timidly.

“Don’t worry – we are still heading for Shiganshina,” Armin says. He turns toward her again. “We had to take a detour. That is all.”

Some tension she did not know had built seeps out of her muscles.

He notices. “Something tells me your main concern does not involve dropping off our cargo.” He raises one keen eyebrow.

The tension appears all over again, mainly in her chest now. It requires great, great effort, clenching her jaw and trying to block the feeling of his eyes on her, to not say anything.

He smiles after a shorter time than she thinks and says, “You are fine, believe you me. Shiganshina is our hometown, Eren, Mikasa and me. We grew up there together. We’re going to spend a couple extra days on the ground to see family and whatnot when we get there.” He almost laughs.

She chances a smile back at him. “I am going to see family there as well,” she says, testing each word as it passes her lips.

Shiganshina, one of the northernmost cities in the Republic of Titans, is supposedly a rather average place. Everything is built around a looming clocktower with a bell that can rack the bones of anybody within a hundred miles when it rings. A centuries-old stone wall runs along the northwest side of the city, no longer an effective fortification from enemies so much as a local symbol and impediment to new construction. The rail system is busy. The weather is mild. The violent crime rate is relatively low, though, as with all cities, there are certain areas to which one should not venture alone at night. All this she has heard from people who have been there, unlike her, and she has no reason to distrust them, right?

He nods, a knowing glint in his eyes, and returns to the control panel. So many buttons and levers must have taken half a lifetime for him to learn. Eren snores once, softly, beside her, and she blinks long and a tingly warmth pulls the energy in tendrils out of her body.

***

The air was thick with stirred haydust that pushed its way into Historia’s lungs. She opened her eyes and coughed, and curled her fingers weakly around the hay underneath her.

Adelina, the kindest of her relatives, had nudged her awake. Historia sat up and brushed her bangs from her eyes. Engulfed in shadow behind Adelina stood a man Historia did not recognize.

“Historia,” she said, hushed, “You’re awake. Good.”

She grunted at the mystery-man. “What is it?”

“Listen to me carefully, Historia.” Adelina gently grabbed her cousin’s shoulders. “Please, this is important. I want to save you and we do not have time for you to question.”

Historia needed a second to recognize what was happening, adjusting her vision to the darkness and her breaths to the thick air. She squinted at Adelina, and held her wrists. “I am listening,” she said.

They were coming, the Resistance. Grandfather had spotted them on the horizon. They couldn’t have been more than a half-hour away, guns and blades in hand, ready to strike with righteous malice. No one at the ranch was safe. Those at the estate over the hill even less so.

_Take one of the horses – take Chessie, take Chessie and ride to Stohess as fast as you can without stopping. Leave her there, or sell her, and in the morning find an airship that will bring you to Shiganshina, in the Republic. Use a fake name. We will be waiting there for you._

“Do you understand? Do you understand what you must do?” Adelina’s voice quaked, and her fingers slipped weak off Historia’s shoulders.

Historia nodded, absorbing every word, her heart starting to race. She leaned forward and tried for a second to study the man.

“What are you going to do?” Historia asked.

Adelina shook her head and sailed onto her feet. “I am sorry.” She tucked into the darkness, and in seconds, Historia could distantly hear the shuffling of feet down a ladder.

The man left behind her, frowning down at Historia as if entreating her to be careful.

She waited until she heard the barn door close, and crawled, sloughing straw, to the window. There the rebels were, their torchglow like a deadly sunrise in the middle of the night. She could feel the beat of their march in her knotted stomach. Her heart pounded in her ears.

By the time she saddled her horse, everyone had already gone.

***

Sasha stands on the platform overlooking the engine room. She watches the workers – four currently on duty – shovel fuel, open and close hatches, pull levers, maneuver around huge pistons and turbines. The air is thick, humid and stiflingly hot right here. She fans herself feebly with a hand, sweat soaking her face and neck in minutes.

Samuel hobbles to her and asks what she needs. She throws a few quick glances – catches a glimpse of the wall-mounted Marco arm, its thin steel fingers fisted around an old wrench. “Is Connie down here?”

He pulls his canteen from his lips. “Was.” He uses his sleeve to wipe away the water dribbled on his chin, and shrugs one shoulder. “He said something or other about an inspection. Don’t ask me where he went. I ‘unno.”

“He’s the new bosun,” she says, frowning. “It’s what he’s supposed to do.”

She thanks him and scampers out of the room, back to where the air is breathable. She does not miss the days when she worked in that heat.

She grunts, and skulks around the lower cabinspace a second time. Less windows down here. She considers giving up and searching the bottom story before she finds him, rocking himself in a hammock strung over the corner of the room, gazing into space.

“There you are.” She takes him by surprise – he looks at her with wide brown eyes.

She stands at the side of the hammock, curling her fingers around the ropey edge. “I am sorry I offended you earlier.”

“No.” He turns away from her with a sigh. “No, you didn’t offend me. I guess I’m still bitter. You were just” – another sigh – “trying to be positive.”

She presses her lips together and leans forward to get an angle on him. “You have the mopiest look on your face.” He makes an odd noise somewhere between a laugh and a forlorn moan.

“Mind if I sit?” she asks. He shakes his head and moves so that he takes up only half the space, and she heaves herself onto the hammock and squirms into an upright position beside him.

He heaves yet another, shakier sigh, presses his palms together between his thighs, and shakes his head.

“Let’s play a game,” she says, studying the ceiling.

He chews over the thought and then looks at her. “What do you have in mind?”

She smiles, weakly but sincerely. “I don’t know,” she says. “Something like we used to play.”

“Cupid’s Coming?” he eventually suggests.

She snorts. She forgot about that one. “How about we do the letter ‘S.’”

“Okay.” He forces a grin. “Cupid’s coming.”

“How is he coming?” she recites.

Sprinting, soaring, sauntering, slinking, skirting, sneaking, squelching, sledding—. He starts to laugh. In the beginning it sounds forced and discordant, but she joins him with as much gusto she can muster, and soon the two of them are swaying and hysterical, and they completely forget what was so funny and what they were even talking about and where they are and everything. He catches his breath and flops his torso onto her lap like a fish on land, tears in his eyes.

She lays her hands on his chest, and says, “If I were captain, Connie, you’d be my first mate.”

“You would never get anything done,” he says.

“True.” She tilts her head, and begins to sound as though she is talking to herself. “At least I would never be bored, though. And we would install a slide straight from the deck to the engine room, and we’d explore the universe, and no one would ever be sad or scared or anything. Ever.” She pets the top of his head.

He closes his eyes. His shoulders jump and he gasps through the nose, and finally the fog lifts and he feels something again. He feels the bristle of her palm over his short hair. He feels the heat and wet of a tear sailing down his cheek.

***

These are the same stars she has seen before, Christa reminds herself, the same stars for everyone, but up here she is closer to them. She can plunge her arm through the thin air, reach into the black and scoop them up, cup her hands so they don’t escape, and peek at their light through her fingers. Like she used to catch crickets in the grass in summer.

She stands outside the cockpit, staring up at them for several minutes, the blanket tight around shoulders. A translucent cloud floats into view and, her neck craned upward, she follows its path halfway across the deck.

She stretches and yawns and finds herself at the edge. The sky goes on forever in this direction as well.

The gusts pick up. She tightens a fist around the fabric, and pokes her other arm out from underneath the blanket and wraps her fingers around the icy rail. She takes a deep breath, the cold reaching the deepest crevices of her body with a cleansing sting, steps forward until the tips of her toes hang off the edge, and leans over the railing.

Somewhere far below the cirrus clouds and the vast expanse of space, a city glitters. She gazes at it, trying to determine where one mass of light ends and another begins, but it is so small – the people are so small, everything is so small, so small she could crush it and she does, squints until it disappears. Her eyes open wide, then, and she smiles.

She pulls the blanket off her shoulders and it flaps wildly behind her. Fighting the wind, she pinches her thumb and index finger around the ribbon in her hair, tears it out and flicks it into the currents that carry it away. Her long hair is golden flames. Her blanket thunder. Her body nothing at all. She cannot breathe, because she is breath itself. She is a giant.

Her grip on the rail strengthens. She plunks one foot onto the lower rail and hoists up the other. She shifts her weight onto her toes, and turns her wrist. Her whole physical being trembles. She leans as far as she can over the side of the ship, so far that her heart freezes in her chest for fear of falling, and she thinks about letting go and closes her eyes and tries to imagine the weightlessness and comfort of such a drop and the city is so _small_ beneath her feet. She raises her other arm far above her head and lets the blanket ride the air.

And in her mind she becomes one of the yellow canaries her grandmother kept in a cage. Free and beautiful, but bound by the jealousy and ignorance of a creature that has never known the unbridled joy of flight, never been able to release the songs from its heart, until slipping out between the bars to the place where they were born to be.

She is a bird. Just like them, she is a bird.

Historia’s stomach suddenly curdles and abdominals tense against the chilled air. Hot tears brim in her eyes. She yelps and moans, and thinks of her family waiting for her, how disappointed they would be to hear one of their own jumped from the edge of an airship like a dodo runs off a cliff in hopes it could spread its ineffectual wings and soar.

She almost screams, leaping backward onto the deck and bringing the blanket to her chest. She pulls her hand away, falls to her knees, slings her free arm around the lower rail, and catches her breath. The wind is less intense down here. She bears weight. She slings the blanket over her back and hunches into it, and sighs and begins to sob soundlessly into the engine hum, feeling tinier than she ever has.

***

“Again with the coffee?” the captain purrs. She does not pick up the cup this time, only watches the steam flutter off the surface. “I thought I told you yesterday that I was not impressed with your gesture.”

“I know.” Christa shrugs. “I just wanted to do something nice.”

Captain Ymir purses her lips at her, and studies her for a few seconds, poring over every detail of Christa’s withdrawn appearance. She swears she can feel the captain’s eyes sucking the very thoughts out of her brain.

“Sure,” the captain grumbles, not entirely believing. She looks down, and Christa is released from the weight of her stare.

She crosses her arms over the edge of the desk. She focuses on her again – Christa intakes a breath and shuffles her feet a little. “I don’t need your kowtowing today. Just bring me Jean. After that you can go fuck yourself.” She flaps her wrist at Christa dismissively.

“Thank you,” Christa says. The captain watches her bow out of her quarters.

Beli, an orange tabby, wakes from his nap and crawls out from underneath her desk, rubbing against her ankle on his way to the vent.

She looks down at the shrinking plume of steam. The rich smell finally registers in her mind. She wiggles her fingers, takes the cup by the handle, and drinks half its contents at once. A pleasant warmth stirs within her. She sets down the cup and smiles.

***

When Jean enters the room, Captain Ymir stands from her chair. The two of them watch each other blankly on their feet. At length, she clicks her tongue.

“Well,” she says, her tone lofty, “Look who finally crawled out of his quarters.”

Jean huffs and shifts his weight. “You don’t look so dandy yourself, Cap.”

One corner of her lips picks up.

“What did you want to see my ugly mug for?” he asks.

“Wanted you to know I did your job for you,” she replies. She throws her head sideways, gesturing for him to approach her, which he does, a few steps.

“Thank you,” he mumbles.

She frowns at him. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna be a useless piece of shit now, after I let you do so much.”

He shakes his head. “Absolutely not – I am only tired. I will get better.” He shifts his weight again.

“Damn right you will,” the captain snorts. “I’ve come too far to do your shit for you.” She takes long strides toward him, balls a fist and presses her knuckles to his sternum – no harsh force, but enough of a sensation to make him glance down for a second.

“Get your head out of your ass,” she growls, her eyes boring directly into his.

He takes a deep breath, but it neither moves her fist nor quite wakens him. “Of course.”

“I am serious. Last thing I need on _my_ ship is a deadweight quartermaster.” She presses harder.

Jean smiles one of his old gummy, sleazy smiles that show his gold incisor in its full, twinkling glory. He knows what she is trying to do: she has done it before to him, and to many others. She may be (unpleasantly, for his tastes) delitescent about it, but she always knows how to pull Jean out of his sentiment.

“Usual seven a.m. wakeup call tomorrow,” he says, and he grabs her wrist and pulls her hand away from his chest.

The tiniest bit of tension eases in her face. She poises her arms behind her, turns and heel-toe steps toward her desk.

“You aren’t thinking of mutiny against me, are you, Jean?” she asks – practically accuses.

He loses his breath for a second – wondering what the hell kind of question that was– and regains composure, gritting his teeth. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

She narrows her eyes at him over her shoulder. He can feel their sting on his skin.

“Captain, you know I am never disingenuous with you,” he says.

“And you know I never blindly trust what anyone says,” she retorts, “Even if they have a _personal creed_ to always be honest.”

He cocks an eyebrow at her and almost asks if she is mocking him – he stops himself, and sets his hands on his hips.

She plops into her chair, closes her eyes and sighs. She glimpses at the tray on her desk. The little coffee cup is long empty, but the smell lingers. She massages her temples with her fingertips. Her long nails make tender scratching noises in her hair.

“I know it is only eight in the morning,” she groans, “But I really need a drink.”

Jean laughs just once. “That makes two of us.” He points a thumb at the door behind him. “Want me to grab you a bottle of scotch from the kitchen?”

“Nah, I’ll get it myself in a little while,” Ymir says. She opens her eyes. Her hands stop moving.

“That is all. You can go do your Jean thing. Just start doing your quartermaster thing again tomorrow.”

Jean stands completely stiff at this, knees together, shoulders square, back ramrod straight. He moves his right arm one joint at a time to throw her a salute, à la Marco, and says, “Aye-aye, Cap.” He drops his arm, turns on his heels and marches through the door.

***

Connie lifts his hand toward the switch that would turn on the light, but stops himself: it is already on. He cranes his head around the corner, smiles and fully descends the stairs, Christa close behind.

Eren sits with his legs crisscross on the floor near the barrels of gunpowder. His shirtsleeves are cuffed. (His left arm and leg are metal – prosthetics, just like Marco’s right arm was, though unlike Marco he usually covers them when he’s not alone.) He ratchets a bolt into the exterior of a cannon barrel propped on his thigh.

“What are you up to?” Connie asks.

He jumps and crooked-smiles at the incomers. “I am almost finished modifying this. I figured that I may as well make the changes to all of them instead of just one, since I’ve had the time.”

“Bully.” Connie pads over to him, appearing to have forgotten his real reason for coming here. Christa follows. The two of them stand over Eren and study the cannon over his shoulder, but neither can figure the purposes of the various scraps littering the floor or strange additions to the other cannons in the corner.

“I can show you what I’ve been doing, if you want,” Eren says. He pivots to face them, and holds the cannon barrel vertically. They meet eyes with him in interest. “You know we saved those white balls the _Warrior_ fired at us.” He points at the pile of them a yard or so away. “Well, I got some help from Armin and Mikasa, and we figured out what they’re made of and how we can equip our own cannons to fire them.” He tilts the barrel so that Connie and Christa can see the levers, the rifling, the compound chamber. The two of them nod, and he nods back. “I’ve yet to test them, so I don’t know if the projectile will be right, but in theory everything is supposed to work. Mikasa wants to demonstrate for everybody later today.”

“That is amazing,” Christa says. Eren accepts the compliment with thanks.

Connie nods and makes his way to the opposite end of the room, where he can grab a toolkit. “I’m happy for you, but I don’t quite granny what all you’re saying.” He looks over his shoulder at Eren. “I guess I still have a lot to learn.”

“Don’t we all,” Eren replies. He continues: “Those white cannonballs are a real marvel. We opened up a few of them, actually. They’re incredibly dense, and layered, and a couple even had explosive devices in their centers, which didn’t go off, of course, thank Heavens. The rest contained accelerant.”

Christa cannot hold back the image from her mind: scorched metal, scattered flesh, carnage everywhere. _All that gunpowder sitting out in the open._ She claws at her chest.

“I think the _Warrior_ folks themselves are still prototyping these.” He glances at the modified cannons. “If we work a little, we may be able to beat them at their own game, if not at least catch up.”

“Brilliant,” she says, faking a smile. “But don’t you think we would be even better off with enhanced defenses?” Even if it is _Maria_ ’s rival, the _Warrior_ still bears living souls. Better to ward off attacks than be forced to return fire.

Eren lifts his hands. “I do, but that’s not my division. That’s something you’d ask Connie and Sasha.”

“Hey, hey, now,” Connie says. He comes up behind Christa. “Sash’ and I are busy rebuilding the lifeplane the _Warrior_ destroyed.” He points at Eren with his chin. “Speaking of, do you know what arms are on the others?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Eren says. He turns away, and hitches up the barrel onto his thigh once again.

She tilts her head. Connie heaves a sigh and taps her on the back, struggling to hold a hefty-sized toolbox in his other hand. With this he ushers her up the staircase beside him.

“Thanks for sticking with me today,” he says. “You’ve made for nice company.” His smile weakens. “If I’m alone, I’ll—.” His eyes flit to his shoes and back to Christa.

She fists her hands together in front of her. “Of course. Anything.”

As the cabin boy – or, former cabin boy – Connie was supposed to closely observe and participate in all different types of duties on the airship. However, the officers, Captain Ymir specifically, used him more as an assistant. He therefore doesn’t have as much experience in things as he would like, but he will catch up sooner or later. He must.

He tries to shrug off the weight of his words, but they only grow heavier. He sucks his lip while they ascend the next flight of stairs. The tools in the box clink with his steps.

“You know, before you came along, I was the most recent addition to the crew. About three years ago Marco and Jean brought me on as a cabin boy from a merchant airship, where I was a monkey. It was not too long after Sally died.”

Christa looks at him. “Sally?” Her palm slides up the railing.

“Daz’s sister,” he explains. “I didn’t know her, and I don’t know how she croaked either, but I heard she had a loud laugh, beat everybody at checkers, and was ugly as the day is long.”

She hums once and nods, and tries to picture her, an unsightly, effeminate, probably more confident version of the cook. The only image that comes to mind is her aunt Gwyneth, with her bulbous, asymmetrical nose and poorly timed jokes.

“She worked in the engine room. Everyone was really hurting from her loss at the time I joined the crew.” They make their way to the top of the final staircase. He lags a few steps behind her and allows her to open the hatch to the deck. “I took it personally at first, but Marco told me I actually helped the grieving process, and that I really was wanted.”

“Marco did have a way of comforting people,” she mumbles. She clunks onto the deck, Connie following. The best person to help everyone move beyond Marco’s death would be Marco himself, she realizes. A lump lodges itself in the base of her throat. She kicks the hatch closed behind Connie.

He lugs the toolbox toward the stern, where Sasha sits surrounded by pieces and parts, and he drops it to the ground with an exaggerated grunt. “The point I’m getting at, Christa,” he says, clapping her on the back again, “Is that you’re actually helping a lot, and we all appreciate it.” Sasha nods in agreement.

Christa smiles and eyes each of them. The lump dissipates. “I am glad I could help,” she says.

Connie sits between Sasha and the toolbox, handing her what she needs on command. Christa is ready to return to the storeroom or wherever else they want her to go, but she listens for a few minutes to Connie and Sasha talking about their menstrual cramps and other vulgar, casual things, and they don’t ask her for anything more.

Mikasa opens the hatch and makes her way toward the bow. She carries a cannon barrel effortlessly in her arms. “Do you need any help?” Christa calls to her, and she replies, “Nope.” She bends down and anchors the barrel onto the mortar there with a few loud clicking noises, and she checks its mobility, its balance, its angles. All is perfect. She nods and stands and starts for the hatch, until Connie flags her down. She stops. A puff of wind stirs her hair just the slightest.

“What are the lifeplanes armed with?” he asks. Eren said he would take care of it, but he still wants to know.

Mikasa scowls, and glances back and forth. “Lifeplanes don’t have any weapons.”

Christa and Connie both raise their eyebrows. She is not surprised, really, that even he doesn’t know much about them. Nobody ever talks about the lifeplanes.

“She’s right – they don’t,” Sasha says, and they look to her. Mikasa disappears. “That is, if everyone on the crew is to have a space. Their frames are too light for anything more than a couple rifles, and those we can just bring with us.”

“So, they’re defenseless?” Connie asks.

Sasha shakes her head, and leans back on her legs. “Not really.” She sticks up an index finger. “They may be slow and small and unable to shoot anything, but their bodies are nigh impenetrable.” She puts down her wrench. “Now, can you hand me a flathead?”

He complies, and watches Sasha’s hands work. “Huh.” Christa cannot stop herself from imagining it, a plane’s graceless fall from the side of a dying ship, the only hope of the birds onboard.

There’s that lump again. “Have you ever needed to use them?” she asks, her voice cautious.

Sasha, who has been on _Maria_ ’s crew longer than most, shakes her head. Then she crosses herself, even though Christa has never seen her be overtly religious before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ftm!connie is my reason for being. 
> 
> i teared up writing that "the city is so small beneath her feet" scene tbh. i almost always get teary when i write scenes like that. 
> 
> ((i just really hope this chapter is not disappointing compared to the last :/))


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